Latest from Michael Arrington

This week we saw a number of interesting web 2.0 developments. Far outstripping everything else, however, was the terrorist attack on London on July 7. Blogs and the Internet played a big role in getting information out to people, as television lagged way behind and the cell networks were jammed.
Weekly Summary:

1. Terrorist Attack in London
I was flying to Europe for a conference, enjoying… Read More

Service: Weblogs.com
Launched: 1999
What is it?
Weblogs.com was the first blogging ping service and remains the largest.
What is a ping service?
A ping service is a server that takes “pings” from blogs (and other sources). The purpose of the ping is to notify the ping server that the source has added new content. This is aggregated with other pings and, if the ping server is open… Read More

Editor’s Note: This is a profile of NewsGator’s online product only, not its outlook, feeddemon and other products. There is a natural tendency to view NewsGator Online in comparison to Bloglines, as the products are both very popular and similar in many ways.
Company: NewsGator
Founded: 2003. Acquired Feeddemon in May 2005.
What is it?
This profile reviews only… Read More

UPDATE: Please see Dave Sifry for an excellent summary of blog and other resources.
Link (The Shape of Days) (via Jeff Nolan)
I was on a plane to Copenhagen when it happened, terrifically happy that I had wifi and blogging away about this and that, when the IMs started coming in from friends in London. Passengers and crew came by to get updates as the flight terminated.
Thankfully my friends… Read More

Previous Profile: July 2, 2005
Launch Date: Just re-launched
What is it?
Google Earth combines satellite imagery, aerial photos, maps and Google Search create an interesting application that allows you to view just about anywhere on the planet in at least some level of detail. It is only available on the PC platform for now.
In their own words, “The idea is simple. Read More

What is it?
It’s high speed internet access in the sky. I just posted a profile of a new skype tool and did it all sitting here on an SAS flight from Seattle to Copenhagen (heading to the ICANN conference in Luxembourg next week). The technology for this has been around for a few years, but this is my first experience using it. I’m skype-outing at… Read More

Editor’s Note: I’m currently 35,000 feet above ground level, on my way to Europe. SAS is now offering Connexion by Boeing – $30 for high-speed wireless for the whole trip. Nothing like making a call from an airplane for two cents a minute. I’m skyping and blogging my way to Europe…Heck, I’m going to profile this next.
Company: Skype (Outlook… Read More

Company: Venture Voice
Launched: June 8, 2005
What is it?
Venture Voice produces podcasts of interviews with interesting people.
In their own words, “What does it take to start a successful business? Weâ€™re working the phone to find the answers by calling entrepreneurs, venture capitalists and their friends and foes. This podcast (or, for the uninitiated, Internet radio show… Read More

Service: TagCloud
Launched: June 2005
Location: Bellwood, PA
Status: Corporate name is IonZoft
What is it?
TagCloud is a service that generates a “tagcloud” (see below) based on provided URLs or feeds. A tagcloud is basically a grouping of tags associated with content, from a single or multiple sources. Tagclouds are a visual tool – tags used more often are bigger and/or… Read More

Previous Profile: June 14, 2005
What’s New?
Feedburner had a “Hackathon” (see Joe Kraus on hackathons) day last Thursday, where engineers dropped their projects for a day and worked on new features that could be designed, implemented and tested in a single day.
They came up with seven new features (link):
– Ping Server –… Read More

Service: Extisp.icio.us
Launched: June 2005
What is it?
Extispicious has two tools built on the back of delicious (profile) data: one for viewing a random scattering of a user’s delicious tags, sized according to number of times used by that user, and another for viewing a random set of yahoo images based on search results for that user’s tags.
View Tag… Read More

Company: Dinnerbuzz
Launched: June 2005
What is it?
Dinnerbuzz is a new service that allows users to provide feedback on restaurants, bars and coffee shops. It leverages user-provided metadata (including tagging) to allow others to easily find and read content on restaurants.
In their own words, “Dinnerbuzz is designed to make it easier for you to find a place for dinner (and drinks)… Read More

Beginning today, we are going to link to and summarize important web 2.0 developments, essays, posts and announcements published during the previous week.
Many of you may read Richard MacManus’ excellent web 2.0 Weekly Wrapup at his site (link). Richard, don’t think of this as stealing your idea. Rather, please consider our relatively poor imitation as a very sincere form of flattery. Read More

Service: Google Earth
Launch Date: ???
What is it?
Well, it’s going to be a cool tool that “combines satellite imagery, maps and the power of Google Search to put the world’s geographic information at your fingertips.”
However, the download is delayed, so we can’t test it yet.
The preview certainly looks cool though. When its live, we’ll profile… Read More

Company: Userplane
Founded: 2001
Location: Los Angeles
What is it?
Userplane is an application service provider to web 2.0 companies. They offer a suite of easy-to-integrate services, built on the flash platform, including chat, group chat, a webrecoder and, soon, a sitesearch product.
Typical Userplane customers are dating and social networking sites (any site that has users who would like… Read More

Company: BoingBoing
Launched: January 21. 2000 (as a weblog)
What is it?
If you haven’t heard of BoingBoing, you are seriously behind in contemporary Internet culture. It is the number one most linked to blog according to Technorati (link), by a huge margin. It is a must-read every day here at Techcrunch.
It is a self-described “directory of wonderful things”, and that it is. Read More

Company: Gizmo
<img src='http://tctechcrunch.files.wordpress.com/gizmologo.gif&#039; alt='' border=1 /
Launched: June 30, 2005
What is it?
Gizmo is like skype but is built on open source. It’s available for Mac and Windows (3.1 mb download on windows), with a Linux version promised in August.
A problem with Skype is that it is a closed silo – it will not… Read More

Event: Vertical Leap
Date: Tuesday, June 28 2005, 9:00 AM – 5:30 PM
What was it?
Vertical Leap was an exceptional one-day conference held in the heart of Silicon Valley earlier this week, hosted by Jeff Clavier and Dave McClure. In their own words, “A whole new crop of venture-funded startups focused on vertical search are beginning to enter the field and draw attention. Search… Read More

Company: FeedNation
What is it?
FeedNation is a web-based RSS aggregator that just opened up for business. It has some cool features, like RSS2Email that are very interesting. It looks like it supports tagging as well. Full Profile later.
Tags: feednation, RSS, web2.0, techcrunch, RSS Readers Read More

Service: Yahoo My Web 2.0
Launched: June 29, 2005
What is it?
MyWeb2.0 is a social search engine “that complements web search by enabling users to search the knowledge and expertise of their friends and community in addition to the web.” We’ve used and abused it for a day, and in our opinion it’s good – a bit like regular yahoo plus furl (profile).
It was… Read More